Facts and information do not pass scrutiny
This is in response to Mr. Keef's letter regarding the state of Nevada's collection of gasoline taxes.
According to Mr. Keef, Nevada collects 33 cents per gallon of gas on 250,000 gallons per day, which equates to $82,500 per day or $577,500 per week, or $2,310,000 per month and $27,720,000 annually; not $120,120,000 as he states. We will not comment into his comparison of Nevada to Germany.
As usual, as in the past, Mr. Keef's facts and information do not pass scrutiny.
R.I. WINKEL
Yerington
Questions for the state wild horse commission
I would like Cathy Barcomb and the others on the Nevada Commission for the Preservation of Wild Horses to explain exactly what was done to help the wild horses.
Did this commission protect our wild horses from the cruelty of being driven by helicopters into corrals and then crowded in small trailers and prodded out by contracted help? Did they protect the young horses left behind during the roundups? Did they help the horses that ended up in slaughter plants that were sold so cheap to the killer buyers?
Did they complain to the BLM when horses were taken off their Herd Management Areas so that cattle could graze there? Did they try to provide some shade for the 1,000 horses in the hot sun at Palomino Valley? Did they take hay and water out to the horses when the BLM said that there is not enough range for them? I know that the commission has been drawing money from the Heil fund for years, but what exactly did they do to protect the horses, which was what the Heil Fund was for?
This article then explains about the private help and wonderful idea that Madeleine Pickens plans and I commend her for this. It has been private money and people that have helped the horses. I will be glad when the wild horse fund dries up because that money has been wasted. State Sen. Rhoads, who is a rancher, should not be on the Wild Horse Commission because it is a conflict of interest. He wants the horses gone but the commission's job is to protect them.
Hopefully, the government will stop spending our money on roundups and feeding the horses in holding pens and corrals because the people do want the horses. They want them to be left on public lands.
EILEEN COHEN
Minden
Have we really improved? Honestly?
In response to "Another Opinion," an editorial from the L.A. Times titled "Darwin's birthday tainted by naysayers."
The writer basically claimed that Darwin's theory was a "scientific epiphany," with "overwhelming evidence" and that students in schools deserve to be told the "truth," while creationism is just another "attitude," a "skunk" with a "subterfuge" motive to keep the "truth" from the classrooms.
Maybe the writer and those like- minded would remember the scientific difference between micro and macro evolution. Modest changes within a species that adapts them to their changing environments is called micro evolution. Macro evolution would have you believe that this amazing universe with all its complexity mysteriously happened by accident or chance suddenly. Life miraculously appeared and magically continued to orderly progress into what we see today.
Intelligent design (creation) vs. cosmic accidents (evolution) both take faith. But as the USA Today and Gallop Polls pointed out, a majority of intuitive, rational thinking Americans agree on a creator.
Could the real skunk be today's post-modern academia becoming as closed minded to legitimate scientific evidences as they claim their early- to mid-20th century contemporaries did to them? What are they so afraid of? It seems they would welcome all reasonable explanations for how and why we are here. That is science in its truest form. There are a number of books with valid scientific theories to put huge doubts on Darwinian evolution, such as "Darwin's Black Box" and "Darwin on Trial," to name a couple.
"Modern" education and the social revolution of the '60s influenced many of us to buy into a low view of life; accidental and purposeless with no accountability. But the fallout has been catastrophic, especially these last 40 years. As never before the moral and literal bankruptcy of our society is staggering. A somewhat small group of people has worked overtime to remove God from our society. But take a good look around, have we improved? Honestly?
Maybe the evolving, intelligent answer has always been an accountability to a purposeful, wise and loving creator.
JOHN SHULER
Minden
DMV not yet equipped to make some decisions
A bill recently introduced in the Assembly, AB184, would allow folks to choose their gender when getting a driver's license or identity card.
Um, I have some concerns.
Gender isn't something one can choose. Biologically, it's defined by the presence of a Y-chromosome or its absence. I don't think the DMV is equipped to make this determination, at least not yet.
Where does one draw the line, if one chooses not to use the biological marker? At what point does one "become" another gender? If I develop a unreasonable fascination for Cher and show tunes, should I ask the DMV to identify me as female? If I look in my closet and more than 75 percent of my shirts are Pendeltons, should my driver's license say male?
Sure, there are days when I can't get the song "I Feel Pretty" out of my head. But I don't think it should be up to me to decide what gender I am. God already made that decision for me.
ROBERT FRENCHU
Carson City
This is home and I don't want to leave
If Jim Gibbons' proposal of cutting our education funding by 38 percent goes through, my fellow students and I will start paying more than the amount we already pay, and that is hard enough for some of us.
I am a full-time student at Western Nevada College with two jobs, and I still struggle to pay for each semester. Fewer and fewer nurses graduate every year because the program is already very difficult to get into, and fewer will be able to afford thousands of dollars a semester it already costs.
Some of us will no longer be able to fulfill our dreams of becoming doctors, nurses, ASL interpreters or obtaining many other professional degrees and technical certificates that Western Nevada College and other colleges of Nevada currently offer. Instead, many of us would be forced to seek our dreams and education in other states, probably not returning to Nevada.
This is my home I do not want to leave it.
HEATHER DOUGLAS
Carson City